Hey all! This is former co-editor David back from the dead.

This week, I started the Microaggressions tumblr with former Blaaager Vivian. We originally wanted to collect the little incidents and anecdotes in our lives that make our Asian American and intersected experiences marginalized. Then we had the idea to put it up on tumblr and collect submissions.

An email and a Twitter account later, this was born. We've had shoutouts on Jezebel and Racialicious. And now, our very own Asian American Alliance blog.

Please send it to your friends and loved ones! Submit posts you have encountered yourself!

Not that you should ever read Bwog comments, since they are as informative and placating as SFGate comments, but here is one on the Town Hall on Barnard's recognition of sororities:

Anonymous

Two arguments:

1)
Clearly, IGC shouldn’t get money or be allowed to distribute money for members of sororities who are Barnard students and do not pay the appropriate fees.

If this means that sororities stop allowing Barnard students, so be it.
If this means Barnard starts charging students more for the fund, so be it.

2)
As a male CC student, I would only be okay with my money funding Barnard girls if I had received my quota of drunk Barnard-sorority sister sex. But I haven’t. So see above.

Anonymous
Sad, Sad, Sad Asian

September has failed to pass the Dream Act in Congress. The Dream Act is legislation that would have enabled children who were brought to the United States by their illegal parents to gain a path to citizenship if they entered college or the military after high school. Many of these children have grown up accustomed to calling the U.S their home. It just doesn't make any sense to deport 'Americans' out to a country foreign to them, losing valuable contributing citizens of our society. As an immigrant myself, I am disappointed at the turn out of this long awaited legislation.

Why is there such a bitter anti-immigrant sentiment amongst our legislative sectors? Have we forgotten that even the Forefathers that carved the backbones of the American Constitution were descendants of immigrants? Have we forgotten that outside of the rightful Native Americans that are wrongfully quarantined in reservations we are all descendants of immigrants? Immigrants work backbreaking hours day in and day out, tending to crop fields, cleaning your toilets, working in unruly conditions for meager wages, at jobs Americans find dirty and degrading. How are they taking YOUR jobs.

Has America gone insane?

Judge Blocks Parts of Arizona's Immigration Law (NY Times)
The big news of the day. Any celebrating is of course, a bit premature - what is horrible about SB 1070 is not just its content but that it merely formalizes a lot of practices and anti-immigrant, anti-Latino/a sentiment that has been ongoing and will continue for quite some time.

Afghan War Diary, 2004 - 2010 (WikiLeaks)
An overwhelming amount of classified information relating to the current war in Afghanistan. The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel all have their own features analyzing the leak. If you are generally terribly pessimistic about US military operations there won't be a whole lot to surprise you but it's still a fascinating read. Just as fascinating is WikiLeaks as an organization itself - the New Yorker has an excellent profile on its founder Julian Assange. This is also a good companion to the domestically focused Top Secret America feature over at the Washington Post from last week.

Essence Hires White Fashion Director, Leaves Loyal Readers Asking Why (Clutch Magazine)
I don't have much to add, other than that it's depressing that I should even have to say that the idea of a "post-racial" America is ridiculous, but here we are again.

Court's Leniency Ruling Is Too Late for Deportees (NY Times)
Given AAA's involvement with the Qing Wu case (big what up to Annie and Belle!) this article sounds pretty familiar. This quote struck me in particular though - "the Obama administration...is on track to deport a record 400,000 people this fiscal year."

There's been a lot of things to get angry, upset, and disturbed by recently (actually, always), but I figured I'd ease into blogging with a slightly more accessible topic.

APA media representation increasingly seems to be the defining cause for mainstream, neoliberal APA youth activism; a development that I'm not exactly thrilled by. Yes, yes, the whitewashing of The Last Airbender is frustrating, but when the battle lines are drawn this narrowly it becomes easy to slip into highly problematic positive/negative, good/bad image binaries that tend to exclude just as much as they include. It causes victories to be as narrowly defined as the kid in Up and the latest role John Cho is cast in. There's a lot more to be said about this, but I'll save that for a more lengthy, theoretical post later on.

Despite all of my serious misgivings with media representation politics, I still can't help but smile at this quote from a recent post by Atlantic blogger and Vassar professor Hua Hsu on basketball player Jeremy Lin and the upcoming reality show K-Town:

As someone who grew up seeing very few Asian Americans on television, I still find myself mystified, even thrilled, whenever I come across one, even if my views on media representation have softened. There's something irrationally and inexplicably bemusing about these moments.

I was at the bank today when a woman barged through the doors wailing. Be it that I live in a Chinese bubble, everyone in the bank, the tellers, managers, customers, were all Chinese [American]. The woman had apparently withdrawn 2300 dollars in cash from Chase bank and wanted to transfer it to another bank. She left the vicinity and returned thereafter because the teller at the other bank claimed that the bills in her hands were counterfeit. The woman was frantic and threatening the teller at Chase that she'd call the police. The teller, oblivious to the woman in front of her, continued with her work and pointed her towards the manager. The customers on the line, including myself, were shaken. How can a big brand name bank give out fake bills? The woman approached the bank manager, and was ignored. The manager continued with her phone call and did not move from her seat even after she had hung up, completely ignoring the woman waiting in front of her desk. The woman began to scream, yelling injustices in two Chinese dialects. Go ahead, call the cops, the manager said, not once raising her voice.

I was appalled and stared at the scenario before leaving the bank. I forget sometimes how different things function in Brooklyn, compared to the comfortable Upper West Side (Manhattan) services that I've grown to spoil myself with while away at school. I obviously do not know the whole story, and my portrayal of the events may or may not have been accurate, but it reminds me of how differently we treat one another because of our shared heritage, or lack thereof. In this case, it seems in my neighborhood at least, Asians treat "Americans" much more respectfully than their fellow Asians. In restaurants, banks, bookstores, and all kinds of shops, I've witness the odd tendencies and injustices that Asians commit against one another. The bank manager knew the customer could not speak English, and regardless of her incessant threats that she'll dial 911, we all know the woman would not have been able to communicate her woes to the operator. The manager was right that nothing can be done about the bills. The woman had left the bank and no one knew if she could have swapped the fifties before returning. However, the complete lack of professionalism the manager displayed makes my head drop in agony. Had this woman been an "American," would the manager have acted differently? Had this woman known English, would the manager at least have the decency to glance at the complaint. Why is it that when Asian Americans provide service to fellow Asian(s) [Americans], we observe such a discrepancy? Why do we kiss-ass whites while downplaying others?

I've always hated it when people tell me that Asian Americans lack the unity that is necessary for a movement. I resented it because a part of me knew it was true. Behind the model minority myths, and the stereotypes, we're so torn between those [Asian Americans] who believe that we can rise in American society as we are now, and others who realize that we need the political empowerment to justify our existence as just Americans. While we do boast high percentages of our population in professional careers, (e.g, doctors, lawyers, etc), I feel we are a long way from social progress in that sense. While many professionals acknowledge, embrace, and attributes parts of their success their backgrounds, many do not.

Recently, I've also become quite angry about the 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' casting issue. Many have called us racists for opposing an all white cast when the producers and the director have stated repeatedly that they only picked the best persons for the job. However, they fail to see the real issue. There are so many talented Asian American actors out there, and rarely do we see an opportunity open up for them on the big screen. Most of the scripts written in Hollywood do not call for an Asian lead, but I feel Avatar had that potential. The discussion then becomes an argument over whether the main protagonist of the series was indeed Asian. Many feel because of the ambiguity of anime, the characters can be anything. Well then, my argument still holds. Never can an ethnic minority play a white man's role, so when an ambiguous role comes along, why won't you give the Asian man a chance?

Well in the end, the movie was a flop and I'm quite tired from bickering with people on these forums. Why are we targeting a single movie? Why do we not put more Asian Americans in power in the movie industry to increase our own representation?... But as it turns out, Asian Americans hold a good number of seats in the industry.

Quoting from Hollywood and Asians: Do we really need more Asian Americans In Positions of Power?:
"We're our own worst enemies....We're taught to assimilate, to not make waves, to be followers. Maybe once we're allowed into that exclusive club, we wait to fit in so badly that we don't want to give the impression that we're favoring "our own," sometimes to the point of going in the opposite direction and making an effort to reject our community."

Maybe I'm going too far with this, but it does set up for quite a bit of discussion.

Oh, the Grand Old Party. They have provided me with so many great hours of pure entertainment. Recently, they have launched a new site titled 'America's Speaking Out' intended to 'connect' the public with congress so that the national law makers can understand what America truly wants. Obviously, the republicans have no concept of internet trolls and forum gunners. The website has been getting tens of thousands of views within hours, showing us that America is definitely speaking out. So what do Americans really want?

Dear Readers,

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say a quick shout-out about an event that's coming up: an Asian American Health Disparities Panel! Hosted by AAA, the event's happening next Friday, the 12th, at 7:30pm in the Satow Room in Lerner! As posted on the Facebook event page (linked here):

Health disparities are NEVER on the Asian American agenda, even though the average American household spends over 15% of its income on health care.

We will grow to comprise over 5% of the American population in the upcoming years and yet the Asian American voice is one of the most neglected minority voices in the United States. Health disparities are a hush-hush topic that households try to avoid, and the lack of sufficient national research studies done to support the present Asian American population is a cause for concern. Our main goal with the panel is to try to stir that sentiment, that voice!, to hope and encourage more studies done in this field.

The panelists include Ms. Alexandra Belcher, Dr. Ming-Der Chang, Dr. Shobha Krishnan, Dr. Dennis Yi-Shin Kuo, and Director Rebecca Sze.

Hey, loyal readers of the blog! I know I'm late (two weeks late now, to be precise) to call out the New Year, but just wanted to say that as a new semester approaches, we at the BLAAAG and on the Asian American Alliance surely want to wish you all a good year! We will be quite busy, and with a whole lot of resolutions for 2010 (blogging more, anyone?). We will be getting ready for ECAASU soon, holding different panels such as an Asian American Health Disparities panel, holding our second Crossroads conference for Asian American high-schoolers, and much more! And I'm back from Hong Kong, ready to start a fresh semester at Columbia, as will other contributors to the site. Keep it moving! (And soon, we'll be able to say Happy New Year once again: the Lunar New Year, that is! It falls on Valentine's Day this year.)